Head of STEM polling agency: Czechs are ashamed of their politicians

Half-way through the government’s term in office Czechs are so fed up
with political infighting and corruption scandals that 80 percent of them
now support early elections. For this week’s Panorama I spoke to Jan
Hartl head of the STEM polling agency about the mood of the public, what
people think of Czech politicians and whether the developments of the past
few months have robbed them of any illusions they may have had regarding
politics.

“Well, they do not have many illusions left. To put it simply, people
think that politics is a dirty business and that the majority of
politicians are crooks who are in it for the money. So they are not all
that surprised by corruption scandals and nepotism in Czech politics. What
is relatively new is that people are starting to see political elites as
professionally incompetent. They never had any illusions about their moral
profile but they thought that, in contrast to former communist leaders,
they are much more professionally sound and much more competent and
recently it seems that they have started losing even those illusions.
Formerly they thought “well, after decades of communism the country is
devastated and it will take a lot of time before it gets better –the most
important thing is that our children will live in a better world than we do
“ but recently we have observed a decreasing proportion of people who
believe that their children will be better off –economically, morally and
so on. That is partly related to the economic crisis of course, but also to
the moral crisis in society after more than 20 years of post-communist
transformation. “

Is this perception putting young people off from entering politics and
maybe effecting a change for the better in time?

“Losing faith in the future is disturbing but the situation is not
totally hopeless. People have not resigned on public affairs in general
–they are still relatively active - and they intend to vote in the next
elections. They are still interested in politics. They are not so alienated
as to totally resign on public matters.”

What about young people?

“That’s a big question mark. Until recently we could observe that the
young generation was not interested in politics at all and generally did
not attend elections. They seemed to be driven by other issues than public
affairs. In the last elections there was a slight change which indicated a
bigger interest in politics – more of them came to the polls. Before that
it was mainly middle- aged and older people who came to the polls. What
will happen in the next election is not clear and what intrigues me the
most is whether the young generation will become more active and say
“this style of politics is no longer acceptable” but there are no signs
to indicate such a development yet.”

There is now general disgruntlement with the performance in office of the
three centre-right parties –has that made the Communist Party more
acceptable to the public?

“The Communist Party is no longer the nightmare it used to be in the
1990s.Partly this is due to the fact that two decades have passed since the
fall of communism and then there is the fact that anti-communist campaigns
appear shortly before every election suggesting that the Communists are the
biggest threat to our future. A large proportion of people - even those who
do not particularly like the Communists have grown tired of this. They say
(to the scaremongers) -what you are doing is not fair. If you think the
communists are such a threat you should have moved to force them out of
politics long ago. So it is a complicated issue. But if you ask people of a
leftist orientation whether a coalition of Social Democrats and Communists
would be acceptable to them then the majority of them would say yes. And as
I said even people of an anti-communist persuasion see the campaigns as a
utilitarian misuse of the anti-communist card which politicians play from
time to time to manipulate the situation and that it is not a real issue of
this society.”

Czechs usually react to bad times with a wicked sense of humor – they
crack jokes and stage satirical plays – is that what is happening now?

“You are right in saying that Czechs respond to difficult times with
humor but I think that right now it is a bit “blue” and that is due to
the fact that people are losing faith in the future. They do not see a
possible improvement even in the long-term which does not make it easy to
crack jokes and for the humor to flow. We hear jokes from time to time, but
the jokes are a bit bitter I would say.”

Do you think Czechs are losing their sense of pride in being Czech – are
they ashamed of their politicians?

“Yes, I think they are ashamed of their politicians, although I would
not say they are losing their sense of national pride. Our data suggest
that Czechs are not only proud of being Czech, they are also proud of being
Europeans and members of the EU. But they are confused by their
representatives, they are ashamed of their politicians, they are
disoriented and disenchanted with Czech politics. This brings about a
general feeling of insecurity and uneasiness. “